The human body is a finely tuned piece of equipment, designed to support, protect and move you, enabling you to achieve your daily functions and tasks. Sports can put this to the test.
Often we see sports people because of recurring injuries or due to fatigue, poor performance and diminishing capacity to repair. Our job is to assess the question of why. To look at your structure, be that the bones, joints, muscles or posture and to see what faults there are that could be causing or maintaining your problem.
In modern life the balance between the skeleton and muscles can be affected by factors such as poor posture, inappropriate healing of tissues following trauma, and long periods of staying in one position in poorly designed furniture. This leads to the muscles having to work harder to help support the body, which in turn leads to undue fatigue and painful or injured muscles and joints.
At BOP our osteopaths work alongside the sports massage, rehabilitation and acupuncture team to get you back on track.
If your injury is extremely painful, has involved trauma, or swells quickly, it might be worth a visit to the A & E department in case you have a fracture or dislocation and require medical assistance.
Most injuries benefit from the early application of ice packs to help swelling and arnica to bring out any bruising, allowing quicker recovery. Resting, compressing and elevating the affected area can also help.
Different sports are inclined to cause different injuries. E.g. Skiers often suffer with haematomas (deep bruising) and groin strains. Footballers commonly suffer from ligament damage to the ankles or knees, torn hamstrings and cartilage problems. Aerobic dancers are prone to foot injury, shin splints and chronic calf problems. Racquet sport players and older runners are liable to suffer from achilles or calf tears.
All conditions benefit from good advice, assessment and early intervention, as appropriate.
It is generally best to see one of our osteopaths for your initial appointment. They will assess the nature of your problem and formulate a treatment plan for you. If they feel that incorporating massage or acupuncture into your plan or using these instead of Osteopathy may be of benefit, they will advise you of this.
The initial aim of treatment is to reduce swelling and inflammation in the area. In the early stages this may require compression bandaging, but older fluid is best dispersed with massage treatments and osteopathy. Your recovery time can also be reduced by the use of various electrotherapy equipment, such as ultrasound. Next steps would be working to improve flexibility and strength.
The most important treatment is the correct advice, and this will include exercises specific to your condition. The exercises necessary to promote recovery may be different for each activity and will change as you recover. The osteopaths will advise on this.
*Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report. The osteopath magazine Aug/Sept 2010’
